


hyacinth

by impulserun



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, M/M, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-04
Updated: 2013-04-04
Packaged: 2017-12-07 11:07:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/747832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impulserun/pseuds/impulserun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a vase of blue hyacinths on Grantaire’s bedside table.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hyacinth

For a time he thought they would be happy together. But if he is Grantaire’s Apollo then Grantaire must be his Hyacinthus.

He should have known it wouldn’t last.

*

“Hey. It’s me again.”

Grantaire doesn’t respond. He never responds. With a sigh, Enjolras sits down beside him, takes his hand in his. A few seconds of silence pass; he watches the rise and fall of the slumbering artist’s chest, thankful for even this small sign that his painter is alive.

“So,” he murmurs, reaching up to run his fingers through his hair. “A lot has happened since I last came, huh? Ponine told me she dropped by, so I guess you’ve heard – she’s finally moving out. Of her parents’ place.” He pauses. “Granted, she’s sharing an apartment with Cosette right now, but at least Gavroche has a place to stay away from home, right?”

(He’s gotten too used to the silences after the ends of his sentences waiting for Grantaire to wake up and fill them, to see that playful, affectionate gleam in his clear green eyes as they butt heads. He misses it.)

*

He’s always been the golden boy. It never used to matter to him before. But then he enters uni and meets the small group of boys who come to call themselves the _Amis_ , and there sitting in the back of the student café is a waifish art student with black curls, a half-full bottle on the table and an aimless sketch book in his hands. The boy who looks at him with a piercing gaze the colour of absinthe, and grins, and for a moment there Enjolras feels the tenuous, ephemeral beginning of something real.

“’Lo there, Apollo.”

“I’m not –” he snaps, and whatever it is he feels gives way to irritation. (He hates being judged by his looks, by his unruly blonde hair that grows out in ringlets and his too-feminine jawline that had his mother dressing him in shirts with frilly cravats and keeps her fussing over him like the daughter she’s always wanted.)

“Apollinaire, then,” the student concedes, and he returns to his sketch book after chugging another swig from his bottle.

(A quick search on his smartphone later, Enjolras learns that Apollinaire means ‘of Apollo’. Really, what’s with this guy and his obsession with Greek gods?)

*

“Well, well, honourable leader,” comments the artist coolly, “it seems I’ve got you at a bit of a stalemate.”

“Grantaire,” he states cautiously, his hands raised in a sign of surrender. “Taire, put the bottle down.”

“Oh yeah?” The hints of a mischievous smirk play at Grantaire’s lips; his fingers deftly adjust the nozzle of the spray bottle in his hands. “Make me.”

They circle each other for a bit, Enjolras eying the weapon in the other’s hands warily. Then Grantaire squints, aims, and squeezes the trigger, and that’s when Enjolras dives for him.

There’s a lot of shrieking and rolling about involved, but he eventually gets the other boy pinned to the floor, and that’s when the cap on the bottle in Grantaire’s hand falls off, and the stunned artist is drenched with its contents.

There are a few moments of disbelieving silence. Then the two university students burst into hysterical laughter.

“You didn’t think,” Enjolras manages, breathless from laughter, “to check that the bottle cap was screwed on?”

And that starts them off again.

(Combeferre enters the room with the rest of the cleaning supplies in hand. The incredulous look on his bespectacled face as he utters a bewildered “What the _fuck_?” only makes the memory that much sweeter.)

*

It’s been six months and counting since Enjolras’ epiphany, six months since their apartment gained an extra guest room, and he still can’t believe his luck.

He plans to take Grantaire out to dinner today. Nothing he can’t afford, of course, or Grantaire would never forgive him, but he remembers Jehan mentioning a little café in St Michel that he thinks his painter might enjoy. A welcome change, of course, from the usual takeout they end up ordering.

They both have afternoon classes that day, and his lecture hall and Grantaire’s studio are on opposite sides of campus, so they agree to meet at the odd sculpture of the elephant somewhere in between. He’s never been so eager to get out of class before.

The air seems that much sweeter, the sun that much brighter. He wonders what Grantaire might have to say about this, lets his mind drift to him – “Wait, wait – two steps back, yes, stand right there – please, Enj, just one sketch, _please_?” – and he smiles.

He’s almost to the elephant now. There’s only one more street he has to cross, and he can see Grantaire waiting for him already, hard at work bent over a sketchbook, the pencil in his hand flying across the page. His teacher must have let them off early.

“Taire,” he calls, and Grantaire looks up with a grin, a bit of charcoal smudged across his nose. (His heart flutters at the sight, because this is Grantaire at his finest, stripped away of all his armour.)

He forgets to look both ways before he steps off the pavement.

*

Visiting his sick father in their countryside home was without a doubt _the worst decision ever_. For all that his mother makes it sound like his father is in bed breathing his last, dying of tuberculosis, it’s just the flu. Another innocent fabrication to bring mother dearest’s darling, darling boy home. And _oh you won’t leave so soon, would you, dearest? Not when you’ve just come home!_ (His father rolls his eyes, wipes his nose, and grants him permission to sequester himself in the library. And thank heaven for that.)

Enjolras stays for three, four, five days, then he can’t take it anymore, and then he’s dragging his (never unpacked, not really) luggage out the front door and on the next train that’ll take him back to his tiny Paris apartment (and Grantaire). He’s had plenty to think about on this trip home, you see. Things like how he dislikes his mother. Things like how the childhood halls that were once so comforting and homely now seem stifling and restrictive. Things like how he feels for Grantaire.

A strange thing, really, now that he mentions it. He supposes they’d always just been _there_. The feelings, he means. Do people really keep track of these things? It all seems like such a _Marius_ thing to feel that he’s more than a little disconcerted.

It all started with the dreams. Once he’d arrived at their manor and safely ascertained that his father was not, in fact, dying of consumption, Enjolras had holed himself up within his childhood bedroom. That first night he had fallen into a fitful slumber. And he dreamt.

They started out innocent enough. The dreams, that is. The sensation of holding a warm body close to his, of opening his eyes and smiling at a snoozing head of black hair, of breathing in and inhaling some heady combination of whisky and coffee and musk. Of sitting at the breakfast table, nursing a cup of warm coffee, waiting for the seat opposite him to be filled up. Of tugging the blanket tighter around his shoulders, of a face burrowing into his neck as he nodded off to sleep.

Then they became much more…. intense. Dreams that left him jolting into wakefulness with a gasp, grabbing at the blankets, the hint of a name lingering on his lips. Dreams that left him burning as he lay alone, in a cold, dark room with no one but himself for company. Dreams that had him squeezing his eyes shut as he (reached into his pants and) swallowed his moans.

Dreams of, well, Grantaire.

And suddenly everything falls into place, everything comes rushing to the surface, the thousand tiny glances he catches the artist sneaking at him at the dinner table, the contentment in his chest when they’re both lazing on the sofa with nothing to do, the way Grantaire sometimes likes to lay down and prop his legs against the armrest so that Enjolras is pinned to the sofa beneath him and how it always puts him slightly on edge.

Oh God.

Grantaire.

(And the train ride looms long and dreary before him as he journeys on into the night, with miles to go before he sleeps.)

Hours pass with him staring aimlessly out the window, looking at the dark of the night sky and thinking about how it reminds him of a certain someone with messy hair and words that cut like glass and his eyes the colour of absinthe.

It’s almost twelve when the train pulls in at Paris, and the stars shine down upon him, silent and sure. He jumps into the first taxi willing to take him, but by the time he reaches their quiet little apartment it’s half past one. No matter. Grantaire is always awake at unholy hours of the night. (He never had reason to be thankful for that before.)

His fingers are shaking as he jams his key into the lock, his heart thudding against his rib cage. His suitcase he leaves on the sofa, his shoes kicked off on the living room floor. His hand rests on Grantaire’s door knob – he takes a moment to breathe – and then the door’s opening, and he walks in –

To an empty room.

The bed has not been slept in, the sheets are folded and clean. Only a single, closed sketchbook lies on Grantaire’s study table.

Enjolras turns around, walks slowly out of the room, closes the door behind him.

(Maybe, he thinks, heart crashing to the ground, maybe Grantaire already has someone else. Maybe he’s at a lover’s place. Maybe Eponine has given up on Marius at last and they have gotten together in his absence. Maybe maybe maybe. Enjolras wouldn’t know. They’ve never talked about love before, really, except to ridicule Marius. Why would he know? It’s not like he’s anything to Grantaire, no, of course not. Only a roommate. Only a friend. It’s not like –)

In the morning, Enjolras thinks, he will wake up and greet Grantaire with a smile, and pretend not to care.

With a bitter smirk twisting his features, he lets out a quiet laugh, stops before it turns into a sob, and turns to go to bed.

There’s only one problem.

His bed is currently occupied.

By a sleepy painter with black curls who has somehow managed to wrap himself entirely in the blanket and is beginning to stir.

( _Backpedal_ , his mind shouts at him. _Get out of there!_ )

“Apollo?” (Oh god oh god oh _god_ his voice is hoarse and croaky and oh _fucking hell_ _Grantaire is sleeping in his bed._ )

Fuck.

He had thought about what to say on the train back home, he really had. But the sight of Grantaire, his hair mussed up by sleep, the collar of a loose white shirt (is that one of his oh god it is) hanging off his shoulder, his brow furrowed and his eyes squinting in confusion, is enough to cause the gears in his brain to screech to a sudden halt.

So the words spill out in a rush; “I’m sorry I’m late but I had a sudden revelation and I need to tell you I love you.”

Silence. (Fuck, he thinks. He’s screwed it up.  He’s screwed it all up and now Grantaire will never look at him the same way again –)

“I’m pretty sure this is just a dream,” Grantaire says finally, Enjolras’ blankets ( _oh god_ ) pooling at his hips, as he blinks the sleep out of his eyes, “but I’m sick of being Clytie, sun god. Now get over here so I can kiss you.”

(If he had known. If he had only known.)

*

“You know,” Enjolras ventures, “I never asked your name.”

He looks up, a bottle raised halfway to his lips. “Me?”

A smile quirks at his lips. “Yes, you. I’ve had countless debates with you about our country and yet I still don’t know your name.”

“And I,” the boy with black hair grins, setting the still mostly full bottle down, “know you only as Apollo Belenus.”

“Call me Enjolras,” a pause, “Dionysus.”

He inclines his head with a smirk. “Call me Grantaire.”


End file.
